In the British comedy show Monty Pythons Flying Circus, a cartoon God would often send a giant foot down from Heaven to squash malefactors. Some see Gods justice in the non-cartoon world to be similarly imposed, with Him smiting the unjust, albeit minus the giant foot. The Old Testament gives examples that fit this model, but things get complicated upon closer inspection. Was God a little indiscriminate in His actions? While the Israelites were the Chosen People, there must have been a few virtuous souls among the various Runners-Up Peoples that the Israelites, with Gods help, destroyed.

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.orgPROFILE: ELENA KAGAN

When it was announced in 2008 that Cass Sunstein would be joining the Harvard Law School faculty, Kagan said:

"Cass Sunstein is the preeminent legal scholar of our time -- the most wide-ranging, the most prolific, the most cited, and the most influential. His work in any one of the fields he pursues -- administrative law and policy, constitutional law and theory, behavioral economics and law, environmental law, to name a non-exhaustive few -- would put him in the very front ranks of legal scholars; the combination is singular and breathtaking."

Sunstein has argued in favor of bringing socialism(in the form of expanded wefare benefits and wealth redistribution) to the United States, but contends that the country's "white majority" opposes such a development because of deep-seated racism:

"The absence of a European-style social welfare state is certainly connected with the widespread perception among the white majority that the relevant programs would disproportionately benefit African Americans (and more recently Hispanics)."

Sunstein depicts socialist nations as being more committed than their capitalist counterparts to the welfare of their own citizens:

"During the Cold War, the debate about [social welfare] guarantees took the form of pervasive disagreement between the United States and its communist adversaries. Americans emphasized the importance of civil and political liberties, above all free speech and freedom of religion, while communist nations stressed the right to a job, health care, and a social minimum."

In 2007 Sunstein co-authored (with fellow attorney Eric A. Posner) a 39-page University of Chicago Law School paper titled "Climate Change Justice," which held that it was "desirable" for America to pay "justice" to poorer nations by entering into a compensation agreement that would result in a financial loss for the United States. The paper refers several times to "distributive justice."

"It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid."

"We agree that if the United States does spend a great deal on emissions reductions as part of an international agreement, and if the agreement does give particular help to disadvantaged people, considerations of distributive justice support its action, even if better redistributive mechanisms are imaginable."

"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives."

"If we care about social welfare, we should approve of a situation in which a wealthy nation is willing to engage in a degree of self-sacrifice when the world benefits more than that nation loses."

[Cass Sunstein on the "Fairness Doctrine" (restricting opposing political views)]:________________________________________________________________________________________

Also in The Partial Constitution, Sunstein promotes the notion of a "First Amendment New Deal" in the form of a new "Fairness Doctrine" that would authorize a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure that a "diversity of view[s]" is presented on the airwaves.

With regard to citizens who object to having their tax dollars finance abortions, Sunstein writes:

"There would be no tension with the establishment clause if people with religious or other objections were forced to pay for that procedure (abortion). Indeed, taxpayers are often forced to pay for things - national defense, welfare, certain forms of art, and others - to which they have powerful moral and even religious objections."

In the "Acknowledgments" section of her work, she specifically thanked her brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas. In the body of the thesis, Kagan wrote:

"In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalisms glories than of socialisms greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nations established parties?...

"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialisms decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight ones fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope."

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